The Labour Party has revealed that its plan to scrap Universal Credit will spare 848 households in Milton Keynes from the Tory party’s unfair and disastrous flagship welfare policy.  

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to replace Universal Credit with a social security system that focuses on alleviating and ending poverty, not driving people into it.

This will mean that 848 households in Milton Keynes will have the huge burden of Universal Credit lifted from them and will be given the support they deserve by the Labour Party.

In government, Labour will immediately end the worst aspects of Universal Credit, including:

• Ending the benefit cap and the two child limit, which alone will lift up to 300,000 children out of poverty.
• Immediately suspending the punitive sanctions regime, which has been ineffective at supporting people back to work and has instead pushed people into poverty and reliance on foodbanks.
• Ending Universal Credit’s ‘digital only’ requirement, which excludes people who cannot access the internet or are not computer literate, and recruiting 5000 additional advisors to deliver this change.
• Switching to split payments and fortnightly payments, including an automatic interim payment to end the five week wait.

As well as scrapping Universal Credit, Labour will replace the Department for Work and Pensions with a Department for Social Security, marking a radical shift from a system that demonises people to one where social security will support people in finding work and treat them with dignity and respect.

Charlynne Pullen, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Milton Keynes North, said: “A Universal Credit that takes money from many families in need, and makes those families wait for five weeks during the transition, cannot be allowed to continue.”

She added: “Labour will protect those who have already transitioned to universal credit, and we will make sure that in future, families don’t have to go through a process which leaves many in rent arrears and resorting to food banks. We will build a social security system based on the principles of respect and support, not the Tory austerity approach of punishment and fear.”

Hannah O’Neill, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Milton Keynes South, said: “The disastrous roll out of the Tories’ Universal Credit has been entirely to the detriment of my community in Milton Keynes South. I’ve seen first-hand the damage that multiple welfare cuts and changes have caused.”

She added: “Universal Credit has been the last straw for many ordinary people, forgotten by the Tories. The system does not need tinkering with, it needs scrapping and rethinking from scratch, which is exactly what a Labour Government will do.”